Venice is known for its stunning bridges, canals and elaborate architecture, especially on the banks of the Italian city’s largest and most famous channel, the Grand Canal.
The waterway is lined with buildings mostly built between the 13th and 18th centuries and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognised for its engineering, scale and adaptation to changing circumstances over time.
Most people would, therefore, jump at the chance of owning a property in this iconic city.
One such building is currently on sale for £15 million, but its dramatic black windows and ornate glasswork comes with a dark story behind the Floating City’s past.
Locals know it as the site of a notorious “curse” that has seen multiple previous owners meet an untimely death or face financial ruin – including The Who’s former manager, Kit Lambert.
The Ca’Daio Palazzo was built in 1479 for Venetian diplomat Giovanni Dario and covers an area of 1,000 square metres. Spread over five floors, it boasts marble floors, a 170-square-metre garden, a rarity in Venice, and an internal Moorish fountain.
There have been many theories surrounding the original foundations of the building, the most famous being that it sits on top of a Templars’ Cemetery. Today, estate agents acknowledge that it has a haunted past.
After Giovanni Dario’s death, his daughter Marietta and her husband Vincenzo moved into the house – he was stabbed to death and, overcome with grief, she died by suicide. Their son was later killed in an ambush.
In 1972, Kit Lambert bought the property for £115,000, three years after the release of The Who’s seminal album, Tommy.
He was reportedly drawn to the palace’s reputation as a “house of ill omen,” but after moving in, told friends he would often sleep elsewhere to “escape the ghosts that haunted him”.
In 2002, The Who’s bass guitarist John Entwistle rented the building for a holiday, but he died in a Nevada hotel only one week later from a heart attack.
Lambert sold the property to Venetian businessman Fabrizio Ferrari, but his life was tragically cut short in 1981 after he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage falling down the stairs at his London home at the age of just 45.
After new owner Fabrizio decided to move in with his sister, she died in a car accident. Italian businessman Raul Gardini then bought the palace in the late 1980s, and died by suicide in 1993.
Now in 2024, the ill-fated palace is up for sale again for 18 million euros, or £15 million. However, it has been on the market since 2022 and there have been no signs of it selling any time soon.
It has now become a topic of fascination online, with many people taking to Tiktok and Reddit to debate its past.
One said: “$20m for a cursed, crooked house would be a hard sell to my fiancé. But a boy can dream!”
Another joked: “Anyone want to help me organise a Halloween party there?
A third simply wrote: “Cursed”.
